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Old 10-17-2014, 12:59 PM   #21
Civicsman
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To bad that cant be said about Toyota, Honda, or any of the South Korean company's.. They charge the same for an American car...except the profits and jobs get taken away from the UAW...
To borrow a phrase from the movie "Aliens", Maybe you haven't been paying attention. More than 20 years ago, Asian car companies decided it is good business to make cars in the USA, not just import them. All of the big foreign car companies now have a HUGE manufacturing presence in the USA. Honda and Toyota both have technical development centers here, and a large percentage of components for the vehicles are also made here.

While I believe trade unions have filled (and will fill) an important place in helping workers escape workplace abuse, I don't believe "profits" should go to the trade unions. If you're talking about workers, whether unionized or not, it's a different story, but that's not what was said.

According to Soichiro Honda himself, in 2010, Honda employed more than 25,000 associates in the U.S. with a payroll of $1.6 billion. Another 140,000 workers are employed at authorized dealerships in the U.S., and tens of thousands more work for the company's 530 U.S. original equipment (OEM) suppliers. For the most part, these are reasonably compensated jobs. That's not a bad record! Note that workers at Honda U.S. (and recently VW U.S.) have turned down union representation. They are reasonably happy with compensation, working conditions, and company-worker relations.

There are a LOT of big US companies who really screw their employees (and the country), by outsourcing manufacturing to low-cost countries when they do not need to do so (Apple, I'm looking at you), or reap incredibly huge corporate and personal fortunes on the backs of workers who are, quite literally, under the poverty line (Wal-Mart, for example). By comparison, the foreign car companies are role models for reasonable treatment of employees.
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Old 10-17-2014, 01:40 PM   #22
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Originally Posted by Civicsman View Post
To borrow a phrase from the movie "Aliens", Maybe you haven't been paying attention. More than 20 years ago, Asian car companies decided it is good business to make cars in the USA, not just import them. All of the big foreign car companies now have a HUGE manufacturing presence in the USA. Honda and Toyota both have technical development centers here, and a large percentage of components for the vehicles are also made here.

While I believe trade unions have filled (and will fill) an important place in helping workers escape workplace abuse, I don't believe "profits" should go to the trade unions. If you're talking about workers, whether unionized or not, it's a different story, but that's not what was said.

According to Soichiro Honda himself, in 2010, Honda employed more than 25,000 associates in the U.S. with a payroll of $1.6 billion. Another 140,000 workers are employed at authorized dealerships in the U.S., and tens of thousands more work for the company's 530 U.S. original equipment (OEM) suppliers. For the most part, these are reasonably compensated jobs. That's not a bad record! Note that workers at Honda U.S. (and recently VW U.S.) have turned down union representation. They are reasonably happy with compensation, working conditions, and company-worker relations.

There are a LOT of big US companies who really screw their employees (and the country), by outsourcing manufacturing to low-cost countries when they do not need to do so (Apple, I'm looking at you), or reap incredibly huge corporate and personal fortunes on the backs of workers who are, quite literally, under the poverty line (Wal-Mart, for example). By comparison, the foreign car companies are role models for reasonable treatment of employees.
I could so easily tear each one of your point apart bit by bit...I wont...

In the 60's and 70's the American auto industry was the largest employer, now Walmart is... Think that has anything to due with pay stagnation ?

Yes they figured out it was easier to build a car here than literally a slow boat from China? Do you also notice every one of those companies are in the right to work states?

Did you know the American auto industry imploded?

Its classic about the whole VW anti Union vote... Can I ask why a republican Congress person lied outright to the people of the factory that if they went union VW was leaving? You think that would sway anyone?

Just food for thought...This county is being destroyed from in from just a handful of very wealthy people...and todays kids will never be able to make what we did...

Just food for thought... That was then this is now....Are you better today than you were 5, 10, 15, 20 or 30, years ago?... The answer is worse!
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Old 10-17-2014, 03:04 PM   #23
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<snip>

Just food for thought... That was then this is now....Are you better today than you were 5, 10, 15, 20 or 30, years ago?... The answer is worse!
The answer for many may be worse, but for me it is far better.

I have a telephone I can carry in my pocket. I have a Huge flat television set. I don't record onto tapes anymore. My car (huge) gets 25 MPG. My insulin pump is far better than taking 4 shots a day. Titanium is keeping my back together. In 1977 the interest rate on my home loan was 16%. My daughter is stationed in Korea but I can regularly have a video chat with the grand-kids.

In 1977 as a member of the USAF my total monthly income was $512.10 today that same grade/time in service makes $1,918.80.

Costs in 1977:
Cost of a new home: $48,000.00
Median Household Income: $12,686.00
Cost of a first-class stamp: $0.13
Cost of a gallon of regular gas: $0.59
Cost of a dozen eggs: $0.84
Cost of a gallon of Milk: $1.65

Today I just checked Safeway a gallon of Milk is $3.99

I don't think there is a loss of the middle class, I think they are just doing different jobs. If the middle class is gone, who is buying all the iPad, iPhones, and Macs? It can just be 1%ers , far more than 1% of the population has purchased these devices.

Sure the very wealthy are getting even wealthy. But every dollar they spend on stuff employees the people selling the stuff to them. Think of how many employees FedEx and UPS have put on since 1977 aren't they all middle class workers? Apple, Microsoft, Comcast, GE, GM... All of them employee people that are middle class.

Let's stop comparing middle class with union jobs, they are not the same. Let's say that every family that can afford more than one television, more than one cell phone, and more than one car is middle class. That number is MUCH larger today that it was 40 years ago.

You are correct union jobs are going away, but so are jobs of people making buggy whips. Unions had their place and so did buggy whip workers. It's over, move on. We are moving (like it or not) into a society where the Government not the Unions provide health insurance, pay our pensions, set maximum work hours, determine maximum hours, improve working conditions.

It's a changing world, always has been.

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Old 10-17-2014, 05:46 PM   #24
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Yes they figured out it was easier to build a car here than literally a slow boat from China?
In the late 1980's and early 1990's, when the Japanese companies decided to build factories in the USA, there was essentially no automotive manufacturing in China, and Korea wasn't building cars that could be successfully exported to the USA. At that time, it was significantly cheaper to build cars in Japan and export them to the USA. Yet, companies started locating factories in the USA.

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Do you also notice every one of those companies are in the right to work states?
Many are, but what's your point? If a company provides decent compensation, without the need for collective bargaining, what is the issue? I'll also point out that Honda has a huge manufacturing facility in Ohio. You may also remember NUMMI, Toyota's joint venture with GM, in California? These were some of the first, and neither are right-to-work states.

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Did you know the American auto industry imploded?
Yes, I noticed. Freedonia is very much closer to Detroit than Arizona. People here know many who lost their job. I don't understand what this has to do with my assertion that foreign car companies, providing jobs with good working conditions and reasonable compensation, are not the spawn of satan.

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Can I ask why a republican Congress person lied outright to the people of the factory that if they went union VW was leaving? You think that would sway anyone?
I agree completely. I think Sen. Bob Corker, for one, should be tried for violating US labor law.
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